The publicity bumph for Monday's launch of the paperback thriller, Funeral On Ice was almost as sensational as the book. The "international jet-setting author", Deiter Abt, it trumpeted, "counts among his friends Prince Edward, Joan Collins and her sister Jackie, Elton John and Michael Winner". None of these managed to jet in to the party upstairs at the Baton Rouge, where the - admittedly - charming Deiter Abt held court with a number of this city's "A1 social crowd" including Garech de Brun, Graeme and Margaret Beere. Also there, having braved the soaking rain, were art-dealer Isobel Smith, actress Orla Brady, Behan biographer Michael O'Sullivan, and manager of Junkster, Aidan Cosgrove. Joanne Byrne, director of children's charity, the Variety Club, chatted comfortably by the Victorian mantel with Sarah Owens, who has been touring film festivals with her partner, actor John Hurt to publicise his new film, Love And Death On Long Island.
The Swiss-born author of Funeral On Ice (set in the steamy and excessive world of the super-rich) is unmarried and "definitely eligible", and is currently looking for a house in "Dublin city". A previous sojourn in Killiney was unsatisfactory "because it was too far from the pub, or rather, too far from the Shelbourne". Abt returned to his home in Gstaad, Switzerland, the day after the launch to concentrate on his new book Deadly Confessions.